Tuesday 19 May 2009 19.01 EDT
First published on Tuesday 19 May 2009 19.01 EDT

Fowler's inflammatory 1999 Merseyside derby goal celebration, in which he appeared to snort the penalty box white line, was dismissed by his manager as the striker simply "pretending to eat the grass". Everton fans had previously accused Fowler of taking cocaine.

I was the one who dragged Robbie off the ground when I saw what he was doing. I had no idea at all that he was going to do it. I asked him: 'What the bloody hell do you think you were doing there?' I think it was just one of those spur-of-the-moment things, saying that he was getting some almighty stick off the Everton fans. If he had thought about it he probably would have decided it was not the right thing to do. I don't know where Gérard Houllier's explanation came that he was pretending to eat grass — again, it was probably a spur-of-the-moment thing.